The rest of my morning involved finishing Eat Pray Love. A word about this book: If you have not read it, please do. I started reading it a while back and stopped because I was bored. I think that I wasn’t really ready to understand it or appreciate it or be inspired and changed by it. All of which have happened as a result of not being able to put it down this time around. I found it extremely powerful and truly loved reading it. And I can’t wait to see the movie too! :)

Anyway, last night I got to see one of my very good friends from high school– I love being able to reconnect and hang out in the summer, it’s great. But before that, my dad and I tackled 20 miles on the bikes! :) Not bad at all (read: very few hills :)). I wiped out once and scraped my leg — it’s not bad at all, but it is so scary to fall off a bike! I just saw it all happening in slow motion… yikes, not fun.

This morning, I got to see one of my friends from college too! I took her to Sofra where I went earlier this summer with my mom and brother. It was delicious!

Leslie… ? Really? I mean, people mispronounce my name as either Liza (Leeza) or Lisa. But I guess I must have been speaking really quietly? Haha. :)

So, there have been many things I’ve been wanting to make in the kitchen lately, and I decided today was the day! I present to you… KITCHEN FIESTAAAAA!!!!

After recently seeing lots of bloggers makin’ granola like Hillary, I began the festivities with some homemade granola sort of based on hers, but sort of different!

Yummy Granola:

2 cups old-fashioned oats

2 cups Kashi 7-grain puffs

1/3 cup ground golden flax

1 cup chopped pecans

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1/2 cup maple syrup

1/2 cup apple sauce

2 dashes vanilla

1 cup raisins

I preheated the oven to 350. I mixed the dry ingredients (not raisins) and set aside. Then I mixed the wet ingredients and poured them into the dry ones and mixed it all up. I poured the mixture into a big glass baking dish and baked for 25 minutes at 350 stirring every now and then with a wooden spoon. Once I took it out of the oven, I added the raisins. YUM!

Next up? 50 points if you can guess what this is…

That’s right. After checkin’ this out on Heather’s blog, I decided it was time to make some homemade… RAW ALMOND BUTTER! Literally, it’s as simple as Heather says on her recipe; you just put raw almonds in the food processor and wait (and scrape down sides) for … hmmmm, mine took about 20 minutes or a little more. But look!

Pretty good, right?

I’ve had raw almond butter before, but not in a while. It’s verrrry good! I’ve been lovin’ the TJ’s almond butter which is roasted, but I plan on switching off now. :)

And last but not least, after seeing this recipe on Caroline’s blog, I decided to try it! My recipe is almost exactly the same. And I got this yumminess!